They call it the “dangerous middle”! That was enough to get us all hot and bothered when reading the cruising guide as the wind buffeted us around at Bora Bora. Apparently this section is right in the middle of the South Pacific, and it’s dangerous maybe because of the middle, or maybe because there are some islands you could hit? The book didn’t seem to give us many details.
After a few days of squally weather and watching the weather models, ship reports, etc, we finally pushed off on Sept 5th headed west again (a general theme these last few months). In Bora Bora we also watched some crazy AIS antics. AIS is the system that boats use to see where other boats are. I guess that this boat Pitu was going 36kt over land! Since AIS installation is not heavily regulated on smaller boats, there are some iffy installs that must result in very poor GPS reception – which is a bit dangerous for everyone, in particular the boat flying over the ridge.
We had numerous potential stops along the way, but also a good looking weather forecast. So off we merrily went from one of the most lauded islands in the South Pacific.
We caught a fish within 45 minutes of leaving! A good start to the passage, and a nice size too!
The wind quickly dropped but we still had scattered squalls. Behind the squalls the wind would spin in random directions while it rained hard. This both made for some poor mileage days and a few good spin moves. Tom, the windpilot, has really been perfecting the post-squall spin move. Here Sophie had enough of Tom’s antics and stepped in to straighten things out.
After about 2 days we decided to alter course further north to stay in good wind. While this meant no visit to the Cooks, it made for a far more pleasant passage.
The wind stayed steady right behind us. The seas were fine – a bit rolly, but nothing terrible. We (mostly Sophie) cooked and we both ate good food.
Since this was our first passage doublehanded, we struggled to adjust to sleeping during the day. The full hood-head wrap is clearly the way to go.
And we listened to audiobooks (no photo for that, so this will have to do)
And we just sailed and sailed, and the weather forecast kept changing, but it stayed good, so we kept sailing. We even picked up a hitchhiker for the last 24ish hours. He really wanted to be in the cockpit, but finally settled for the leeward deck.
8 happy days later, we sailed over a shallow sea mount (Capricorn Seamount) and then over the Tonga Trench (almost 30,000 feet deep), which made for horrendously short and weird seas. We kept smiling even though maybe we had finally found the dangerous middle?
By the numbers, the sailing was great and the water looked flat. Down below you could get thrown clear out of the bunk. Probably one of the worst night’s sleep that either of us have had. The brown booby that hitched a ride didn’t seem to mind and we decided that while uncomfortable, we probably weren’t in the dangerous middle afterwards.
And with that, right at sunrise on the 9th day at sea we saw the Vava’u Group in Northern Tonga!
It was actually the next day, since overnight we crossed the international dateline. But we didn’t get hung up on the details, and being a Saturday, we rushed to the customs dock, got ourselves cleared in, and found a mooring ball in front of the main town – Neiafu.
We celebrated that night with a cold beer and dinner out. It was wondrous (as always) to sleep in a boat that isn’t rolling.
The next day we had to wiggle the legs, so hiked to the top of Mt Talau up an impressive staircase.
The legend, as written on a nice interpretive sign, states that the Samoans tried to steal the top of the mountain to improve their view. A Tongan goddess mooned the Samoans, reflecting the moonlight off of her buttocks and making them think that the sun was rising, which caused the thieving Samoans to drop the top of the mountain, forming a nearby islet. Maybe this is where the term mooning comes from!
Our sail to Tonga was a real joy and took 9 days, almost to the minute, with a total sailed distance of 1,378nm. We motored a total of 1 hour (15 minutes out of Bora Bora, 45 minutes into Neiafu). That seems like pretty good efficiency to me! 1,585 statute miles per gallon! Show me any other vehicle (other than a sailboat) that can do that. I guess we burned some propane along the way, so maybe we should count that in too. We are very lucky to not need to run the engine for electricity so far.
And now we’re off to gunkhole around Tonga. We have loved it so far, but will save all the juicy details for a future post.
That’s all for now from the Kuakites!